No, 5G does not cause the coronavirus epidemic

• The hypothesis of a link between the coronavirus pandemic and the waves of 5G telephone networks is spreading on social networks, especially since the video of an American "anthroposopher" was broadcast.
• This theory has made many followers in the United Kingdom, where relay antennas have recently been vandalized, but it is also widely used in France.
• Experts object to this information, which is not supported by any scientific evidence.
• The Covid-19 propagation maps also do not correspond to a possible deployment of 5G.

Several mobile phone masts burnt down last weekend in the United Kingdom. This is what several British media have reported, including reports of degradations in Birmingham and Liverpool. The reason ? The 5G network would encourage the spread of the coronavirus.

UK mobile phone masts torched and engineers abused over "baseless" theories linking coronavirus to 5G https://t.co/wp0VHoj8Sz

The popularity of this rumor is very high across the Channel, relayed by some celebrities, including Amanda Holden, the judge of the reality show Britain's Got Talent , who posted on Twitter a petition linking 5G to the epidemic. The theory is also based on the fact that Africa is "not a 5G region" and would therefore be less affected by the epidemic for now.

This discourse also finds considerable resonance in France. Below, a user compares the 5G map with that of the spread of the coronavirus:

It all started with a video posted on YouTube on March 16 and viewed almost 2 million times to date. Supporting eccentric terms - "poisoned cells", "electrification of the earth", "excreting debris that we call virus" -, Thomas Cowan, who presents himself as a doctor, assures us that the viruses are due to waves. The video was quickly subtitled in French, and viewed several thousand times on Facebook:

In the first minutes of this speech he devotes to the coronavirus, Thomas Cowan explains that the Spanish flu of 1918 is due to "the introduction of radio waves around the world". He then spoke of "a dramatic quantum leap in the last six months in the electrification of the Earth. It's called 5G. ” Finally, Thomas Cowan asked where is "the first city in the world entirely covered by 5G". His answer: Wuhan. At the end of his "demonstration", he targets the vaccines which, with their adjuvants containing aluminum salts, would make us receptors of electromagnetic fields.

Thomas Cowan claims to be part of anthroposophy, an esoteric movement which wants to be close to nature and which sees the world as moved by spiritual forces. It was founded in the 1910s by the Austrian Rudolf Steiner.

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Grégoire Perra, professor of philosophy and whistleblower on anthroposophy after having taught in a school diffusing this current of thought, explains to 20 Minutes having quickly reported this video: “Anthroposophical medicine belongs to the sectarian drift of anthroposophy , which I have been denouncing on my blog for ten years. Its supporters are anti-technology anyway. For Steiner, electricity, magnetism and radioactivity were already evil forces. According to the followers of this thought, when we sleep, our astral body leaves the terrestrial field. Suddenly it must pass through satellites. "

Scientists completely contradict the link between coronavirus and 5G. The BBC devotes an article to its site which distinguishes two rumors: 5G could suppress the immune system and viruses can communicate by radio waves. According to Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, cited by the BBC, these two concepts are "complete garbage": "Your immune system can be overwhelmed by all kinds of things, being tired one day or by not having a good diet. These fluctuations are not huge, but can make you more likely to get viruses. […] Radio waves can disturb your physiology by heating you up, which means that your immune system cannot function. But [the level of] 5G waves are tiny and far from strong enough to affect the immune system. There have been many studies on this subject. "

"As different as chalk and cheese"

This is also explained by the teacher-researcher Carlos Bader, 5G specialist at Centrale Supélec, in a video from November 2019 entitled: Is 5G dangerous for health? “We are not in an operational phase of massification of 5G in its efficient version. We are still on the low frequency band. The level of radiation, he continues, is therefore below the levels supposed to damage the cells of the human body.

It would also be impossible for 5G to transmit the virus, adds to the BBC Adam Finn, professor of pediatrics at the University of Bristol: "The current epidemic is caused by a virus which is transmitted from an infected person to another . Viruses and electromagnetic waves work differently. They are as different as chalk and cheese. "

Finally, if we take the Facebook card above which puts coronavirus and 5G in France in parallel, it does not represent reality, simply because 5G is not yet deployed in France, but had to to be tested in spring 2020. If it is well tested in certain places, they do not correspond to the most important foci of Covid-19:

In reality, the map of France published by the Facebook user relates to the deployment of fiber.

Finally, despite the absence of 5G, the coronavirus is already very present on the African continent. And there is no 5G network in Iran, a country which was nevertheless seriously affected by Covid-19.

Anyway, YouTube has decided to put in place new measures to limit the spread of conspiratorial videos linking 5G technology to the Covid-19 epidemic, as a spokesperson for the platform explained to Gardian this Sunday: “We started to decrease the place of videos promoting the conspiracy theories on 5G and the epidemic, which misinform our users in a dangerous way. Nevertheless, Thomas Cowan's video is still visible there.

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• Health
• 5G
• Fake Off
• Electromagnetic waves
• Coronavirus
• Covid 19